What's the best thing a school can have in Sport?

Anyone seeking the answer to this question by scouring school websites would be forgiven for coming up with the wrong answer to this question. 

The things that schools seem to be most proud of - to judge by the messages which they promote to the wider world - are the competitive successes of a small number of pupils, and their facilities.  Lavish and shiny facilities are the proxy for a vibrant sports programme, inferring that the presence of the former guarantees the latter.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Similarly, the fact that a small number of pupils can be successful in a national competition may be evidence of a school with excellent provision, or it may be a complete red herring.  Recruiting a coterie of hired assassins can have a considerable impact upon competitive success, whilst at the same time masking the real health of the programme.  They might come and go, from year to year, but they leave no strong foundations. 

There is one thing that is far more significant than anything else.  This is the same in schools of all types, all over the world.  It is the thing that determines the real strength of sport in a school.  The magic formula is a strong culture of willing participation, shared by pupils and staff.  It is not the involvement secured by compulsion or other forms of conscription, nor one limited to the high performers.  When children of all ages, abilities and sexes want to play, and enjoy their involvement, all things become possible. 

This, after all, is the foundation of club sport.  Without the security of compulsion, clubs have to make the experience engaging and enjoyable, or else market forces condemn them to extinction. Schools could learn much from successful clubs.

A culture of participation, where all strive willingly and some excel, is the most potent thing a school can have in sport.  Staff and pupils don't “give up” their time for sport, they willingly undertake it because it is enjoyable, providing teamship, identity and a sense of achievement. 

But this elusive quality is curiously invisible.  Websites and marketing people don't boast about it, and competitions don't measure it.  Schools attempting to improve provision focus on facilities, programmes, coaching and recruitment.  All of those are less relevant without culture.  The best facilities in the world are of little value if no one wants to play in them. 

When culture is weak, only the really enthusiastic kids want to play.  Others make selfish decisions, preferring short term alternatives usually based around doing very little.  Shopping and computer games, even homework are the weekend activities of choice in some schools.  In others, it is team games.  The kids have not evolved differently, it is the expectations of the environment in which they find themselves. 

The simple solutions to failing sports programmes do not provide the magic bullet.  Appointing stellar coaches, building facilities and recruiting pupils can all help.  But in the wrong culture, they achieve little save frustration. 

Culture may take time to build and be difficult to see.  But its impact is colossal.